


Knives

by JenCforCarolina



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Eris and Toland's creepy relationship, F/M, Taken, i.e I am adding to nemonus's pile of these fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7150784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He took up the knife shaped for him, and Eris takes up the knife of hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nemonus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/gifts).



> [Also on Tumblr here](http://jencforcarolina.tumblr.com/post/145680018268/knives)

His arm jerks in a way that would be familiar on beings other than him. Murmurs words on his lips that are not clear; but whenever were they?

A dead moon fills the wild land’s sky, with cracks to rival the Traveler’s belly. Two great white orbs ravaged by two great battles in one eternal war. Both reek of death, cracked like clams while still alive to suffocate above humanity. Both shattered.

Toland’s hand twitches again, it’s a motion that originates at the shoulder. Tension in something distinctly not muscle amplifies the spasm so his raking fingers cover inches. It affects his head as well, this time, neck bending sideways to an angle improper but not quite impossible before springing back.

Eris only flinches the first time he does that, and even then she smothers its visibility. Confines motion and emotion inside. Her reaction is just as voluntary as the movements he made to trigger it. She feels many things as she regards his hazy form in the crisp darkness. The something closest to the surface is apprehension. The something directly beneath it is yearning.

He hums an air of infinity around him, as inconsistent as it is involuntary. She wonders if he can still sing, with a throat that contorts at a will not his own.

“How?” And Eris poses it as practical question, inviting explanation of intent and cause. Expecting dual truths and philosophy while already beginning to dissect half pleas and madness.

“I took up his knife, now mine.” A twitch along the right arm. “Shaped like-“ Spasm below the left knee. “-coercion.”

Eris is not surprised that the man who had absorbed the eyes and the horns of the Hive, had now taken this. It was interesting, still, the implication of the thought that he had an illusion of control- that he had taken this power and shape, not allowed himself to be consumed.

What did he see out there when he dove beyond the veil?

“You chose?” She is drawing out the conversation for research, Eris assures herself. Rationalizing.

“The power to force understanding on those you wish to understand.” He systematically curls all his fingers smoothly and successfully. “Too necessary to refuse.”

Toland intones then, as if reciting: “Who do you speak to? Who do you wish to heed your words? They will see the truth to all your convictions. Your knowledge is sound, all your prophecies realized.”

His head tilts, but subtle and slow enough to show the decision behind it. “He had such a knife for me. He will have a knife for you too, oh Eris mine.”

Eris has a knife already -a Hunter’s knife- tucked against the small of her back. Hidden by her cloak and secured by her sash. She shifts her hands there, masking the motive by clasping them and straightening her shoulders.

“Do you have the power you were promised?” She challenges.

“We shall see when I speak to them.”

The City at her back is present, suddenly. Eris can feel the weight of them there, the Lights and the people. She feels her lips curl and something like responsibility fall to her shoulders.

He reaches a humming ethereal hand to brush at her cheek, but another twitch disrupts the contact, the fingers darting to the side. She recoils, snarl deepening.

Toland considers his hand with hostility and a toothy hiss. Her flinch seems almost to have escaped his notice for a moment, before he lifts his chin and what ought to have been eyes regards her with some form of amusement.

She hadn’t felt a touch of any sort she recognized. Had his fingers gone through her nose or passed around it? Perhaps he would have been only as tangible as stardust. She couldn’t be sure.

Now her cheek wanted to know how it would have felt, the nerves of her skin drumming up an illusion of contact. One hand comes free from the knife at her back –the other lingers there, fingers just brushing its leather wrapped hilt, darting into the finger holes and out again. She grasps his wrist and the humming grows louder in her head. Her whole arm tingles and burns, like the cosmos trying to pull it apart atom by atom, yet the anchor of this world was too strong to allow it.

Halfway she guides him to her face before it becomes too much. She halts, unable to force herself to pull any further. He completes the journey himself, trailed fingertips up her jaw that draw wounds in the fibers of her soul. He toys with the fraying edge of the gauze.

“You conceal your shame poorly, hiding what sets you apart from them. No one behind those walls has any illusion of you being counted among the Guardians again.”

His whispers echoed in the new galaxy that has sprung between her ears, behind all of her eyes.

“Take up the knife. Take your new shape.”

Her hand closes around a hilt.


End file.
